Best Buy Arkham City preorders get playable Robin

Warner Bros. teams with national electronics retailer for new challenge mode character; Tim Drake Robin pack adds new gadgets, special moves, and maps.

When Batman: Arkham City breaks out this October, gamers will be able to suit up as the Dark Knight and lay waste to the city's shadowy villains. However, the Caped Crusader isn't going to own the spotlight alone.

Warner Bros. today announced that it has partnered with national electronics retailer Best Buy to offer Batman sidekick Robin as a playable character in Arkham City's Challenge mode as part of the "Tim Drake Robin pack." The pack is available to those who preorder the game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. A render of Robin.

Robin boasts his own distinct gadgets and other "special moves," though none were named. Further, gamers who preorder at Best Buy will score two extra challenge maps: Black Mask Hideout and Freight Train Escape. Lastly, gamers who preorder Arkham City at the retailer will score a "Red Robin" skin.

Like its well-received predecessor, Arkham City drops Batman in the confines of an unconventional prison. But where Arkham Asylum stuck players in the halls and courtyards of a mental hospital overrun with the Joker's goons and allies, Arkham City deposits them in a sprawling neighborhood of Gotham City that has been walled off to contain the criminal element.

Under the watchful eye of "warden" Dr. Hugo Strange, who knows Batman's secret identity, inmates of Arkham City are free to do anything they want short of attempting escape. In addition to Strange, the game will feature Batman villains like Two-Face and the Joker.

What's with the Tim hate? He's easily the best Robin out of the bunch, being much closer to Bruce's level when it comes to being a strategist or deductive reasoning skills than any of the other four Robins. This kid put up a hell of a fight against Jason Todd twice, whooped the snot out of Damien (thank god), strategically beat Lady Shiva, held his own against Dick one-on-one, as a solo hero scored a MAJOR victory against Ra's Al Ghul, and found out that Bruce was still alive when everyone else wrote him off as dead. He was one of the darker side kicks (not as much as Damien though), miles away from the one-liner spewing old days of the Robin character and he's showing signs of being able to eventually surpass the bat as the world's greatest detective one day. Yes Nightwing would have been cool but A) Dick's not Nightwing anymore for the moment and B) this isn't Bludhaven.

I got to admit that best looking robin I've seen so far he actually looks semi-badass especially compared to the comic versions I mean c,mon at least he's wearing pants.
Although I still would prefer Nightwing.

As nice as this game looks...I don't like preorder pap. After a certain recent game that bit and used so much preoder garbola it has become a warning flag to me.
As for BestBuy. They should be busy firing the guy who did that latest advertisment spasm about "Pwning every n00b" promoting their tradeback by having the corporate sounding spokesman talk all "/_337"...it was just sad...no matter how nice their buyback program is.

Nice idea to push ppl to piratism, why should i preorder damn game to get Robin when i can just download a crack and play him whenever i want since i cant preorder it even if i want to.
I wonder when will this companies realise that if we players (not me) like the zombie games we are not zombies with no brain and they can just test us with stupid preorders or dlc craps, if they think we are dumb like their scripted zombies they are wrong, sorry but if u game companies treat us like this then we have no other choice but join piratism and enjoy the full games since most of the time pirat gamers are enjoying games more the we do cause of crappy drm and preorders...
Im not supporting piratism but this things lately are really pushing the limits and the games are getting more and more crappy then they were...

It is pretty crappy, yeah. Especially folks who don't have access to a Best Buy. But the developers still need to make a profit on this game, and I am sure this partnership wasn't done up on only a handshake. Hopefully whatever profit they garner will go to ensure that the caliber of their games continue to rise. And as for the DLC, hopefully it will get released at some point in the future.

OMG dont they know or feel for other people that dont have pre-ordering features.
I have the money and I want it but I can't get it ever because it's only with a pre-order.
WTF and these limited/collector's edition bonuses in games are really annoying cuz they give you exclusive stuff.
best collector's edition in my opinion is Killzone 3's since all you get bonus are a DLC which anyone can get and the soundtrack and an art book both of which are useless extras not like this bull!

i just wish that these preorders were available later on after the release of the game make us pay like a dollar or 2 for it. because some game have some sweet preorders but im not going buy the same game 3-4 times just for preorders i dont have the money for it even though i can return it and i am not that thirsty for preorders

Now I have to speak my mind, I cannot tolerate that some frauds (with the support of the developers or whoever gives them this "Robin pack") make us buy the game from some special place to get additional content that we should have with just buying the game! Don't sweat it, man, I was gonna get it anyway! I am from a far away country and I can't afford to "pre-buy" it from some stupid web site and then ship it to my country. Its frustrating to see these things happen, the hell with you Best Buy

So some people are canceling their pre-orders because they aren't getting content that they didn't even know existed or even care about? if they never announced this and nobody knew about it until they got their physical copy from best buy, would anyone care? I think not. Just like nobody cared about the Joker on PS3. Sure it would have been cool to have, but it doesn't affect the game whatsoever.

All this does is push people even deeper into piracy. It's one thing to gamble $60 on someone's, "Art" with no return policy or protection. But to be bullied into shopping at certain retailers to get a digital tchotchke is driving PC gaming even further down the hole to Hell.

It's a best buy exclusive. That's the problem. They are forcing you to shop at a certain retail store to get all the content. Not only does not everyone have a best buy around them, but it's also a kick in the nuts to small mom 'n pop stores. You call it being dramatic. I call it being a rational thinker who isn't a mindless sheep that plays right in the hand of these greedy, slimeball executives

pre-order bonuses are fine on two conditions, first that the content can be purchased by everyone not long after release for a small fee, and second that it is not retailer exclusive.
pre ordering is good for the industry, it helps prevent a rush to market of games that are not ready due to financial pressure, when the fiance people see good pre order sales they tend to leave the developers alone to do what needs doing.